


The Great Work

by IDoNotBiteMyThumbAtYou



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst and Porn, Darkfic, Evil Eivor, Eye Trauma, F/F, Female Eivor (Assassin's Creed), Porn With Plot, Power Dynamics, Power Exchange, Psychological Torture, Spoilers For The Entire Game, This is to my knowledge the only fic of this pairing that exists, Torture, Unhappy Ending, a dubious distinction I know, did I mention I am sorry, fluff free zone, yes i am sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-27 18:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30127248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IDoNotBiteMyThumbAtYou/pseuds/IDoNotBiteMyThumbAtYou
Summary: When Eivor is traded for a temporary peace, the Paladin Fulke takes her into her care, and assumes the holy task of unlocking the dormant god within her.Chapter 2: As Eivor recovers from her injuries, she and Fulke plan the optimal route to make the newly Awakened Ancient known to the Order.
Relationships: Eivor/Fulke (Assassin's Creed), Eivor/Randvi (Assassin's Creed)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after the parley of Cyne Belle Castle. Eivor is taken rather than Sigurd. And Fulke is cool with that for some reason.
> 
> I went back and forth on whether to post this or not. I don't... really think this will be one of my more popular ones, but I do think the writing is worth sharing. Yes. The pairing is sick and wrong. But I wanted to stretch myself and see if it was possible. I hope this reaches the people who will enjoy it, because I enjoyed writing it.
> 
> I also repurposed a lot of game dialogue to mean new stuff because I think it's fun. 
> 
>   
> Content Warnings; PLEASE READ. And if anything here is something you're not up for, please be responsible, take care of yourself, and do not read. Thank you.
> 
> \- Torture;  
> \- misuse of medical tools (but not full on medical horror - no manipulation of patient/doctor dynamic)  
> \- psychological torture, emotional manipulation, mind control  
> \- physical torture including: sleep deprivation, restraints, skin peeling, burning, eye stuff (If you know what happened to Sigurd, you know what this is going to be)  
> \- the description of eye stuff is, I would say... medium graphic? but skippable. it has been separated from the rest of the fic with separation lines. It starts after the line "You're mad" and ends when we go to dream vision format  
> \- Randvi slander  
> \- Choking
> 
> Lastly (and I'm only mentioning this because it always makes me nervous in horror stories): nothing bad happens to the kid.

> _Eivor walked in illuminated darkness. Above her hung a heavy blackness instead of sky. Blood-black ichor pooled at her ankles and extended as far as she could see. Still like obsidian, and disturbed only by her footfalls._
> 
> _She gritted her teeth and willed herself back to present consciousness. She had been here before. And she had never learned how to pull herself out of it before he wanted her to._
> 
> _“How have you found yourself in this position.” came the cool rasping voice from behind her. He was often behind her. An imperceptible presence. A buzzing at her ear. A shadow in the corner of her vision._
> 
> _“You brought me here.” She snarled._
> 
> _“Your misplaced loyalty brought you here,” he hissed, “you must find a way out. Or I will.”_
> 
> _She whipped around but Odin had already disappeared, leaving only a wisp of vapor and a ring of ripples surrounding a small object near her feet. She bent to examine it -_

The sound of her own screams pulled her back to her body as Fulke slowly ripped another strip of flesh from Eivor’s forearm. The pain spiked and blossomed explosively before settling, and she shuddered with the aftershocks punctuated by every heartbeat. Eivor was no stranger to pain. She had been pierced, stabbed, hit, broken, and burned - all before she had lived 20 winters.

But this was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Injuries incurred in a hunt or a battle - even a fight to the death - were impersonal. A matter of kill or be killed. But this was deeply, intimately, personal. And she didn’t know why it was happening. Sweat dripped down her collarbones, and her skin chafed where she sagged against the leather straps keeping her upright under her armpits and encircling her elbows and wrists. 

She could smell her own blood mingling with the rat shit and damp mildew of the stone catacomb. Fulke wiped her hands As she studied Eivor’s slumped form, and pushed the sleeve of her linen shirt back up her forearm. The shirt looked like she had stolen it from a man twice her size. It had been meticulously clean and tucked into her tightly buckled trousers when they had started hours ago, but now it was wrinkled and spotted with blood and sweat, freeing itself on one side and sagging limply down her collarbone.

Without warning, Fulke grabbed Eivor’s chin and peered into her eyes. Her thin, mottled face was pinched in concentration. Searching for something. Eivor tried to look anywhere but at that face. On one end of the room beside the heavy wooden door, leaned the tablet - the saga stone - that wavered dangerously into meaning whenever she looked at it out of the corner of her eye, but became incomprehensible again when she gave it her full attention. On the other side of the room, on a table lit by a sputtering little brazier, lay a confusion of notes and papers. Scrolls and books. A strange glowing weapon -

“Look at me.” Fulke commanded in her discordantly soft voice, punctuated with a squeeze of Eivor’s jaw. Eivor glared into those washed out blue eyes. Fulke scoffed, “gone again,” and released Eivor’s face with a bit more force than necessary. And she turned away to note something on one of the papers.

“What!” Eivor rasped, straining against the leather restraints, not caring that they dug into the bare skin of her chest “You fucking witch! I’ll kill you!” Eivor squirmed impotently, adrenaline feebly limping in to take over where exhaustion and pain had left her weak. The padlocked bars across her lap and shins didn’t even rattle.

Fulke paused in her note-taking and watched with muted amusement. 

“They’ll find me.” Eivor insisted. 

Fulke furrowed her brow in a broad display of confusion.

“Basim surely has already tracked my location. He has already told my brother where I am.”

“Basim? Did you not know?” Her voice creaked warmly like old wood, “ _He_ was the one who told me that you were worth taking, if I could not have Sigurd. _If_ he is tracking us at all, I think he will take his time.”

Eivor floundered. Her promise of rescue seemed lost. “My brother” she cast about, “he will not wait. He is already on a boat to find you. He will make you wish-”

To Eivor’s horror, Fulke smiled softly, “you poor thing,” she purred, “You do not know what you are. On this plane of existence, or any other.” She stepped towards Eivor again and bent close enough to feel her breath but only just far enough that the restraints kept Eivor from biting her. “Your brother sold you out as his half of a bargain, which he already knows King Aelfred has no intention to uphold.” She searched Eivor’s face again, looked into her eyes as though hoping to see inside her. She licked her lips.

“They will come.” Eivor insisted.

Fulke cocked her head and stood to her full height. “Who?” she said with terrible gentleness. She moved to the little brazier and tended to the fire, “You are a leader. I know how you Norse lead your people - loyalty through domination. Your people do not love you,” she turned back to Eivor, with two thick coin sized pieces of wood glowing on the fireplace shovel, “They fear you. _I_ know you are more than what you are, but in this life, you are a leader like any other. They will not mourn your disappearance. They will not celebrate it. They will not mark it at all. You are mine to do with as I must, and they will never find you. Not till I have had my fill.” 

With a small set of tongs she dropped one glowing ember on each forearm - one thus far undamaged, the other where the skin had been stripped. Eivor did not even have the voice to scream.

> _Fulke froze. In the illuminated darkness Odin appeared behind her right shoulder, examining the instrument of this terrible pain._
> 
> _“What does she seek?”_
> 
> _“I do not know.” Eivor replied. Voice calm and healthy in this vision world. The chair disappeared. And she joined Odin in circling Fulke. “Knowledge perhaps.”_
> 
> _“A worthy pursuit.” Odin said, voice strangely soft._
> 
> _“I have nothing to give her but my pain. No wisdom to offer.”_
> 
> _“The most painful step towards true wisdom is to know yourself, Eivor.”_

Eivor could not even strain against her bonds, so pure and concentrated was the pain - it glowed so bright as to eradicate all other sensation, all other thought. She panted, eyes skyward and mouth wide in a silent scream. Fulke searched her face, breathing deeply in religious ecstasy. “Who are you talking to?” Eivor met her wide eyed stare with a glare and held it, seething as her flesh burned malodorously below.

The wood cooled and darkened. Fulke flicked them both to the side, and bent to examine the damage. 

“Randvi.” Eivor whispered. Almost a prayer. “Randvi will…”

Fulke stood again, searching her memory, “Randvi… I have heard that name… Oh!” She turned back to Eivor with genuine surprise, “not your brother’s wife. Surely not.”

Eivor could only manage a glare, which Fulke met with open disgust.

“Oh Eivor,” She sneered, “what a waste. Are you so desperate for power that you must sample all of your brother’s things?”

“She is not a thing.” Eivor hissed, too exhausted to meet the boiled over rage she felt with the coordinating shout. Instead she felt herself melt backwards. A glassy blackness rolled over her vision. She saw the darkness and the dungeon at the same time, and she succumbed - relinquishing control to the buzzing shadow from the black pool. It felt so good to give up control. To let him feel her pain for her, leaving only a ghost of all sensation to tickle her as she drifted back and watched.

“That is all for tonight” Fulke said, “I will treat your wounds. We made progress today, dear Eivor. I am pleased.”

Eivor had lost the meaning of time. But every day (presuming these meetings with Fulke happened only once in a day) Fulke would tend to the wounds she had inflicted with meticulous care. She would release Eivor from her bonds when she was too broken and frail to fight.

Fulke unbuckled her bindings one by one. Replacing old bandages, and assessing the progress of the wounds she had inflicted as she went.

“You heal very quickly, Wolf-Kissed,” She whispered, as though to herself. She bent low over Eivor’s hands where she had carefully peeled away the runic tattoos on her knuckles days ago, “Beautiful. Remarkable…”

Eivor and Odin watched her, waiting for the right moment, and when Fulke unlocked the final bar across Eivor’s lap, she kicked Fulke in the abdomen with all her strength, sending her flying across the room, and skittering a few more flagstones until she hit the opposite wall with an audible thunk.

Odin as Eivor as Odin stood to her full height and stalked across the room to where Fulke was curled against the wall, and looking up at her in jubilation. Odin in Eivor as Odin reached down and roughly pulled Fulke - laughing - to her feet, slamming her to the dripping stony wall, holding her there with both hands fisted in her shirt. 

“I am the ancient one! The Allfather, lord of the earth! Enemy of the Wolf. Teacher of gods! Havi - the High one, The Wise one. The wakeful one,” Eivor watched as her own long fingers encircled Fulke’s throat “I am Odin! and _YOU -”_

“ _I_ am the one to waken you to the fore, my lord.” Fulke spoke low and calm, eyes flashing in delight, “I ask for no thanks.”

The black glass tint washed away as Odin receded, confused. With him, Eivor’s strength again drained away and she clung to Fulke’s front as she slowly collapsed. Fulke helped gently lower her to the flagstones, and brushed a stray lock of hair from where it was plastered across her face with blood and sweat.

Eivor tried to bite her finger and missed by a boat's length. “Troll woman,” she spat.

“Ah.” Fulke sighed, “you again.” Infuriatingly, she stood and turned her back to Eivor, gathering the things on her table into a leather satchel. “Get some rest, Eivor. Someone will be in with food shortly. Gather your strength, because tomorrow, we finish this.”

Eivor succumbed to exhaustion right there on the floor before Fulke had even left the room, and was only jarred awake when the door to her cell opened again some time later. A child brought her food, as always and again Eivor cursed Fulke for sending her rather than a soldier she could overpower without a second thought.

> _“Kill the child and escape.” Odin whispered._

Eivor turned away from the girl and curled up towards the wall. ordinarily the girl left her food next to Eivor and scurried back to the door, jangling her key in the keyhole in terror. But this time she stayed, and Eivor turned to see her seated by the door with a large bucket, staring owlishly.

Eivor reached for her bread - always water and bread - and ate, stomach turning with the monotony of the meal. She felt a pricking as her body, now somewhat nourished, got to work knitting up skin and scabbing over open wounds.

The girl did not leave. 

“Are you staying here all night?”

The girl sat perfectly still and said nothing. 

“Very well. If you try to kill me in my sleep, I can and will kill you faster.” But Eivor had no fear of that. Whatever Fulke wanted from her, it was not her death. And she doubted she could make good on such a threat against a child. Something Fulke was obviously well aware of.

So Eivor curled up to sleep. Just as she drifted off a splash of icy water snapped her awake. The little girl stood over her holding a cup, eyes wide. Eivor sputtered and scrambled to stand and the girl sprinted towards the door, knocking furiously.

She didn’t have her key. Which meant there were soldiers outside the door. Eivor closed her eyes and pressed her awareness out of the cell. She could feel at least 10 men in the room outside the door, their shapes clear in her mind, and their hearts glowing dangerously red. Ordinarily she would have liked those odds, but they were armed and rested and she was exhausted and in pain. She backed down on the floor.

The door opened and a hulking soldier came into the room, looked to where Eivor sat, exchanged a word with the girl and closed the door again, locking it.

Eivor sighed wearily, and she sat back prepared for a long night.

By the time the girl was let out of the room again, Eivor was so exhausted that she fell asleep in the 20 seconds it took for the soldiers the lift her and strap her into her chair (On the first day, it took 5 men to get her into the chair, and only three survived the encounter. Lately she had begun to sit in the chair in anticipation of their arrival, giving them no reason to tire her before Fulke began her work.)

Fulke entered the room with a stool and a wide leather roll, and dismissed the men with a gesture. She placed the stool across from Eivor, before placing the roll of leather on the table which she unrolled to reveal a spread of viciously delicate tools. She then took a cloth from her shirt, stepped to stand over Eivor and gently pressed the cloth to Eivor’s face, to wipe away the remains of the icy water that had been repeatedly splashed on her through the night.

“Did you sleep?” she asked. 

“You know I did not.” Eivor croaked. 

“I do not know that.” Fulke said evenly, “which is why I asked.”

Eivor seethed. 

“But your face is answer enough, thank you.” She placed the cloth back down her shirt and sat in the stool, peering across the space to where Eivor was struggling to keep her eyes open. “I am not unsympathetic to your plight, Eivor. Though you may always hate me, soon you will be grateful to me as well.” 

Eivor mustered a mocking laugh, which Fulke ignored.

“I have noticed that we make the most progress towards the end of our sessions together,” She carried on, “I thought it might be kinder to begin today with you already in a state of exhaustion. Today…”

Eivor braced herself.

“I would like to talk.”

“Talk?”

“Only talk.”

“What are those for?” she gestured with her head towards the sharp little instruments on the table.

“Don’t worry about those right now.” Fulke said without looking.

Annoyingly, Eivor was, in fact, too exhausted to worry about them right then.

“Eivor.” Fulke grinned, delighted, “I know who you are. First I wanted Sigurd. But I was a fool!” She leapt to her feet, too excited to stay seated and paced the flagstones. Her Francish accented English becoming more pronounced in her excitement, “I was blinded by our petty conceptions of value and status. Now I see that luck has been on my side, for you…” she paused for a moment and stepped back to Eivor, voice and demeanor going soft with wonder, “you are the more worthy prize, Eivor Wolf-Kissed” she tenderly stroked Eivor’s cheek, “you are something far greater than him.” She resumed her distracted pacing before Eivor could shake her hand away. “I have learned of your pantheon and _you_ are the king of them all! To free you from this prison will be the greatest honor of my life.”

She clutched at her own chest, enraptured in the imagining of this honor, when another thought seemed to call her back to the present. 

“It seems too great a coincidence that you should be siblings in this life,” she mused, “perhaps you have clustered together even without knowing yourselves! Who else in your life carries a languishing, hidden god I wonder? Basim? Randvi?”

That woke Eivor up. “Don’t.” She said piteously, revealing far more than intended.

Fulke folded her arms, and raised an eyebrow, “hm. Yes. Tell me more about Randvi.”

“No.”

“Did you have her while your brother was away?”

Eivor only glared.

“Pardon me.” She resumed her seat on the stool and arranged her crisp shirt over bony collarbones, “veiled language helps no one in these circumstances. Allow me to rephrase: did you take advantage of your brother’s absence to fuck his wife?”

“She is not -” Eivor spoke through gritted teeth.

“Not his wife?” Her amusement only served to infuriate Eivor further.

“Not _his.”_ Eivor said, “She is her own person.”

Fulke narrowed her eyes, “I hope you do not love her.” disdain crept into her voice.

Eivor did not meet her eye. She did not trust herself to lie convincingly, and didn’t dare speak the truth. She had loved Randvi in quiet, aching, isolation for years. The night Valka told her she was fated to betray her brother, Eivor couldn’t sleep for terror that she already had, in her heart. Every time she returned to Ravensthorpe it was the promise of her face, her teasing smile, her soft voice, and gentle encouragement, that called to Eivor on the wind. 

She had felt honored to call Randvi a friend. Eivor never spoke her love, she never dared to dream. But when Randvi kissed her atop the sunken tower, she had not been strong enough to resist, and she had kissed her back. More. They had spent the night in each other's arms, making up for years of longing until they both fell asleep.

Fulke scowled, “is _she_ your hesitation?” She stood from her stool again, incredulous, furious, “you cling to this world for a _woman!_ A woman you cannot even have!?” She calmed herself and spoke steadily: “do you know what your brother told me, in our short time together? He said that she is a woman of great intelligence.”

“She is.”

“She was chosen for her ability to care for the clan in his absence. They married knowing their time together would be sparse. He said that he went away for two years, and in that time, they agreed to take lovers as needed to stave off loneliness. He boasted of his pragmatic wife. A perfect partner for a man of far flung ambitions.”

This was new information. Eivor’s mind was too heavy and hazy to trace any coherent counterevidence.

“Did she ever come to you in those two years?” Fulke asked in mock innocence.

Eivor’s silence was eloquent enough

Fulke shrugged, “She must have been sufficiently satisfied elsewhere not to need your company, then. Though I imagine there are fewer options for her here in England, and with her new responsibilities, I am certain she does not have the freedom she had in Norway.”

Randvi never seemed to leave her maps.

“She must have needed a distraction to take the edge off the overwhelming responsibility your indolent brother left at her feet. A worthy distraction…” Fulke added as an afterthought, her eyes glancing down Eivor’s sturdy frame which had barely diminished despite malnourishment, “but a distraction nonetheless.”

After her night with Randvi, Eivor had woken atop the tower alone. And in the light of day, the guilt of promises broken, and prophecies of betrayal clanged together discordantly in her heart. The night before leaving for Oxenefordscire to join Sigurd she gave in to guilt and ended it with Randvi, before anything had truly begun. 

She stood there, heart breaking, as Randvi maintained perfect poise. “You may be right,” Randvi had said calmly, “It was foolish of me to think it could lead somewhere.” and she had turned back to her map to continue their discussion of alliances, as though nothing had happened. Eivor had broken her own heart for her sake and the sake of the clan, and Randvi had not seemed to feel anything at all. At the time Eivor had admired her steadiness, but now… 

“You were merely there.” 

“You know nothing of what you speak.” Angry tears - foreign and confusing - stung her eyes.

“She is a base creature!” Fulke cried impatiently, “not worth keeping you anchored to this vile prison of yours. None of us are!” she grabbed at her own roughly hewn crown of straw-like hair, and fell to her knees at Eivor’s feet, “animals, we are. Spit and shit and soil. But you are so much more!” She gripped Eivor’s thighs and lowered her head to her knees “Please! I seek to give you that understanding! That is the gift I would give!”

Eivor struggled against her bonds, desperate to dislodge Fulke’s supplication, “you have given me pain!” she howled, feeling more like an animal than the ‘so much more’ Fulke seemed to think she possessed.

“Yes!” She whipped her head back up to meet Eivor’s gaze with a joyous zeal, “to waken you! All that power.” she gripped Eivor’s thighs even tighter, her spindly fingers belying an iron strength, “All that potential locked away. A god, trapped in a prison of bones!” She stood, chest heaving with excitement, “I will free you!”

With shaking hands, Fulke went to her spread of tools, and carefully chose a set of what looked like tongs, but with wicked little metal fingers on the end, and a friendlier looking piece of metal, smooth, thin, flat with a slight curve at the end. Fulke steadied herself with a deep breath and a muttered prayer and went back to where Eivor sat helpless in her chair.

She took hold of Eivor’s hair and lowered herself to her level, “if you move,” she murmured next to Eivor’s ear, “you will regret it.”

Such was the warning that Eivor suddenly found herself so afraid that she couldn’t breathe. Fulke studied her eyes for a long moment. 

“The left one,” she said finally.

Understanding jolted Eivor sharper than any splash of water, “You’re mad!” she shouted. 

* * *

Fulke seemed not to register the insult and brought the tongs to Eivor’s left eyelid. She eased the eyelids, one clamped onto each side of the little tongs.

Eivor’s breath came fast and shallow as Fulke stretched the eyelids apart with those cold metal fingers farther than they should go, careful to avoid scraping the delicate surface of Eivor’s eye.

“No. No! Please!”

Fulke used the ostensibly friendlier tool to reach into the space revealed. It was a sensation, a pressure, so strange it could barely be called pain, but the _wrongness_ of feeling any sensation there at all was excruciating.

“I am not him! I am not Odin! I am a base creature like any other please!” Eivor’s voice sounded unlike herself, shrill with panic.

“What did I say about moving.” Fulke hissed, and with a steady hand she pressed the tool to the side. Eivor felt something give, and worse, heard something creak, “In the end, _you_ must leap from the precipice into full understanding on your own.” Fulke whispered sensuously, “I cannot do it for you. May the Self-Begotten one guide your journey.” And with a final wrenching twist- 

* * *

> _Even in the dream darkness Eivor was brought to her knees with agony. Her screams echoed strangely in the walless abyss._
> 
> _“You m i sunderstand, Eivor.” Odin stood above her, calm in his wisdom “She has saved you.”_
> 
> _“She has ruined me!” Eivor moaned._
> 
> _“The more you resist me, the more you resist her, the more pain. And not just by her hand.” He slammed his staff on the ground “Know yourself!” He commanded._
> 
> _“I will not let you have me,” she had just enough strength to snarl, “I will not let you quash me out of existence.”_
> 
> _“A powerful spirit. How much of that is from me?”_
> 
> _“I am my own!” Despite the pain Eivor stumbled to her feet “You are a fly buzzing in my ear.” She lunged at Odin who disappeared and reappeared behind her shoulder._
> 
> _“Yes! And I could not have chosen better if I had been able to choose. I do not wish to lose you entirely. We could exist in tandem, you and I.”_
> 
> _“You…” Even in this dream darkness she felt the blood flowing hot from the ruin of her left eye, “I… That was not a mere vision.” she touched the stream of blood and examined it. It glowed in the light. The blood of a god. “It was a memory. I sacrificed my eye for a chance at life. I sacrificed my eye for the promise of_ **_this_ ** _life.”_
> 
> _“A promise you have already done much to fulfill.”_
> 
> _“But there is more. I have been restrained by fear, and avoidance of suffering.”_
> 
> _“Why hold back, then? With me you have wisdom. Glory. Power. What more do you need?”_
> 
> _The winds were silent. There was no one to call her back to home. “Nothing.”_
> 
> _“And what would you give?”_
> 
> _Eivor met Odin’s gaze, wrecked left eye, to wrecked left eye. She bent, Odin bent, to pick up the object haloed by a ring of ripples at her feet. They stood as one. They stood as Eivor and held the object at arms length between her fingers - Odin’s eye, her eye. She beheld the eye beholding her and spoke as Odin - as herself:_
> 
> _“Everything else.” and crushed th_ e _eye in her fist._

Eivor with Odin as Eivor roared a sound inhuman as time resumed and she returned to the present. Fulke started and looked up from where she had placed the eye on a slab on the table in the corner.

“You!” Eivor shouted, voice strong and clear for the first time in days. 

Fulke stared, frozen in disbelief. “Eivor?” She spoke cautiously, as though unsure whom she addressed.

Eivor took in her own bound body. The pain was distant - as though separate from herself - and her right eye felt aflame with vision. She saw her past. She saw all of her past. Understanding flooded her, and the memories took on their true form. The lovely pretense of “Asgard” and “Ragnarok” melded with ancient technology, coronal ejection, and the true nature of the tree of life to create a hybrid metaphor laden truth.

“I am Odin. I am Eivor. I am more than either. I am more than both.” She spoke in a stream, declarative and clear. “I have wrought for myself a second chance.”

With the world as it was now, she could seek immortality only in glory, for there was little knowledge to be had. But she felt powerful nonetheless. She had enjoyed this body for 27 years, and with a new understanding of her previous form, revelled in it all the more. Its very fragility, its proximity to destruction at any moment carried a thrill she had never appreciated before.

“I am Eivor Wolf-kissed, and the enemy of the wolf. I am the Allfather and the Feeder of Ravens. I am born again to enjoy the short lived glory of a human life with the wisdom of the teacher of the gods.”

She grinned and lowered her eye to Fulke who had lowered herself to the floor, tears streaming down her face in awe.

“Untie me.” she commanded.

“Will you kill me?” Fulke whispered. It almost sounded like a request. 

“You must find out for yourself, oh seeker of knowledge.”

Fulke seemed unable to stand, and she crawled, trembling, eyes downcast towards the chair. With shaking hands she unlocked and unbound Eivor, from the ankles up.

Eivor watched her every movement, and marveled at the simplicity of her form; she remembered how these beings were made. There was a time when it affronted her that these base, uncomplicated creatures would survive Ragnarok and she would not. But as Eivor, she had lived among them for decades. Their agonies and passions were every bit as complex as the Aesir’s had been, and the limited finality of their little lives lent meaning to mundanity. Even so, few of them managed to elevate themselves the way this woman had.

Few of them had the curiosity, the ambition, to be anything more than animals who could weep.

Fulke finished unbinding Eivor and stepped back. She knelt as she had to Aelfred, head bowed. Eivor stood, tall and unbent. Her body ached; the skin still felt raw, and blood still poured freely from the chasm on the left side of her face. But the pain was revelatory. A cacophonous harmony of sensation. She took a deep breath (the air filling her lungs, sorting through a beautiful meshwork of tiny capillaries, oxygen trading places with carbon dioxide) and enjoyed the feeling in a way she never had before - knowing herself now to be a delicately balanced machine.

“Stand.” Eivor breathed.

Fulke stood. She was quivering, perhaps with fear. Perhaps something else. Her heartbeat fluttered, her breaths were shallow and quick, her cheeks flushed high, the tears had stopped but her pupils were wide in the low light. She did not meet Eivor’s gaze.

“Look at me.” 

“I am unworthy to behold your terrible beauty.” 

“Yes,” Eivor agreed, “you are. Look at me.”

She looked, and gasped, tears springing to her eyes again, as though Eivor were made entirely of light.

Eivor stepped towards her and took her face in both hands. She turned Fulke’s head to the side, examining impassively the rabbit flutter of her pulse. She ran a finger curiously down the line of the side of her throat, stopping at the hollow in the front. She followed the line back up to her sharp chin, and turned her face to the other side.

“Fear not, seeker of knowledge,” she intoned, still examining the shapes Fulke’s bones made under her skin, “yours was the great work.” She turned Fulke to look her in the eye again, “the highest achievement of mankind. Now I must carry it forward.” 

Eivor brought her thumb to Fulke’s lower lip and gently coaxed her mouth slightly open. Fulke blinked, puzzled as Eivor leaned forward - haltingly, to sate a curiosity - and pressed her mouth to hers. They were both still for a brief moment, parted lips to parted lips, when Eivor gently slid her tongue across Fulke’s lower lip. Fulke whimpered into the kiss and closed her eyes. 

Eivor delved into her, exploring lips, teeth, and tongue, keeping her eye wide to observe Fulke’s utterly yielding eagerness. Eivor took a hold of Fulke’s hair and pulled her away from the kiss, holding her fast with her other hand at her jaw. A smudge of Eivor’s blood decorated her right cheekbone.

“Whom do you serve?” Eivor asked softly.

“In my heart I serve none but the self begotten one.” Fulke spoke steadily, the answer spoken as a beloved script written in her very soul, “I seek only knowledge of the Lord of the treasury of light. Here on this mortal plane, however, my wretched need for resources dictate that I must serve kings and leaders. King Aelfred commands me: as my King. Closer to my true purpose, I serve The Father - unknown leader of my order. I am his instrument.”

“I seek no command of your heart,” Eivor said, “but here on this mortal plane I would have you serve me over any king.”

Fulke’s eyes widened, “ _I_ serve _you?_ ” 

“I will need one such as you. You are the only being on this earth who knows intimately what I am. You - who seek those who came before your kind, while carrying knowledge of this world. One eye towards true understanding, the other towards placating those who are too blind to even seek it out. I will require your vision, you see,” Eivor quirked her lips, unable to help herself, “for I have only one eye.” 

Fulke’s face broke into a wide smile, she smiled so rarely, and even less often with genuine delight, that the expression warped her face strangely, “I am but a humble seeker of the true nature of the universe. To serve you, to learn from you, o teacher of the gods, shall be beyond my most fervent imaginings.”

“Good.” Eivor removed her grip on Fulke’s hair and did her best to smooth back the coarse pale strands. “The first thing…” she traced one blunted fingernail down Fulke’s throat to her sternum, to where the lacing of her shirt had come unraveled somewhere between her breasts, “I need from you…” she flattened her palm against Fulke’s skin over her left collarbone for the pleasure of feeling her elevated heartbeat, “is to stop this hole in my face from bleeding.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Again, I'm not really anticipating a big response from this one, but I would love to hear from you if you enjoyed it! Or just had a feeling.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Eivor recovers from her injuries, she and Fulke plan the optimal route to make the newly Awakened Ancient known to the Order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has smut. By which I mean the chapter is about half smut.  
> This pairing is objectively terrible. Get out before you become invested like I am.
> 
> CW: for religious trauma and sexual shame! So that's fun. Don't read this.

The Mother Superior referred to Fulke as “sister” and did not ask questions.

Eivor was presented as a former heathen in need of a place to shelter as she recovered from an illness of a spiritual nature, and they were both given cells in the convent. Eivor - with all the wisdom of Odin - could not conceive how an “illness of a spiritual nature” could possibly have manifested in raw wounds, burns, and a freshly stitched missing eye. But outside of short bursts she had hardly been able to stand, and Fulke insisted that this would be a safe place to shelter while she gathered her strength. She said that the sisters would know more of the healing arts than she did.

Fulke instructed her - advised her, reverently - to stay silent among the nuns as she knew nothing of Christ and would surely give herself away. 

“They are blinded by the lies of Saklas. But I know their language. I was raised in a place like this. Allow me to speak for us both.”

Many of the sisters were glorified boarders - living in stasis until their noble families found a suitable noble man to marry them off to. It was a rare place in England which did not allow men under any circumstances. As such, the convent was a reliable setting to store an unruly daughter and protect her virtue.

Eivor did not mind staying silent as she found she rarely needed words to tempt one of the sisters away from her prayers. And from there, these women rarely had any interest in discussing Christ. 

Eivor credited them with her swift recovery. 

Her memories were still a jumble. She struggled to pull apart the threads of legend and truth. To piece together a timeline was a trial. To remember what everything had actually looked like - impossible. She was alive now. That was all that mattered. Odin was with her, but there was no reason to dwell on the failures and mistakes she had made when she had been him. All that mattered now was now.

Fulke proved an invaluable asset. Her contacts in the Christian world, and her order of ancients opened doors of information. Over the weeks of Eivor’s convalescence, Fulke traversed England, seeking artifacts, doing tasks for the order, and fulfilling Eivor’s requests. She took it all so seriously. Eivor found it quaint that there were still humans around who longed to serve them - so many centuries later. These people had spent their entire lives accruing power, all in the hopes to someday offer that power up to someone like her - rather than keeping it for themselves. She couldn’t understand it, but she would be happy to use it to her advantage. 

Fulke was eager to make Eivor’s awakening as an Ancient known to the order immediately, implicitly trusting that every member held their beliefs as sincerely as she did, but Eivor insisted they wait until she could be sure of the true loyalties, and identities of every high ranking member. And so, with an eye towards her eventual coup, Eivor instructed Fulke to quietly discover these identities. A thing Fulke had never sought before. She knew her own immediate circle, she knew those below her, but none of the others’ underlings, or the order’s mysterious “Father” of England. Eivor could see that it rankled her - Eivor was, after all, asking her to fulfill the purpose of the teachings of her beloved order, by going  _ against _ those very teachings. To live out the unknowable reality of what had only been theory and prayer until now.

But Fulke kept her troubled mind to herself, and pursued her assignments without complaint, so complete was her trust and devotion to the ancient wisdom Eivor could now access.

This left Eivor with ample time to rest and enjoy the hospitality of the sisters as she waited for Fulke to periodically return, check on her healing process, and offer up her reports.

Spring came and went like this, when Fulke returned to the convent at dawn one morning in the first swell of summer. The cell doors did not lock - presumably to hinder any immodest acts - but Fulke always made her arrival known from the outside.

Eivor called for her to enter, as she sat up from the hard narrow bed and pulled a shirt on. Fulke entered and closed the door behind her, bending to one knee and bowing her head. Her hair was still damp from the exertion of riding through the night to arrive here - the thick leather armor could not have helped.

She held up a little scroll for Eivor to take, “My lord, the identity of th e the Warden of Law Maegester is a Reeve in Picheringa.” Fulke never bothered with banalities - a positive trait of hers. Eivor stepped over to Fulke in her shirt and bare legs and took the scroll back to the bed to peruse. “He joined with the order and rose quickly. He has a talent for keeping people in line.”

Eivor had thoroughly studied Fulke’s notes. They went into great depth about how each member had gotten involved, what function they served, how they had climbed up the ranks. These were men and women of great intelligence and considerable power. Some seemed to be in the order because they loved money, others because they hated Christianity, very few seemed to belong out of the draw of fervent devotion on par with Fulke’s. Eivor could already see some chaff to cut away.

“With that, I have uncovered the entire leadership of the order of the Ancients, sans The Father. The sisters tell me you are recovered to considerable strength, thus I believe the time has finally come to make yourself known -”

“Paladin.” Eivor sighed, and looked up from the scroll, “I want to know whom I am up against before I make my claim,” she reached for the trousers by the bed.

“My lord, if I may.”

“You may,” she slid both legs into the soft brown leather. Gunnar had fixed these for her when she caught them on fire a year ago.

“The Father is an individual of great commitment to the cause. He sees how important our work is. I have complete faith that he will step down when a true ancient is before him. After all…”

She trailed off squinting at an odd shape on the floor.

Eivor followed Fulke’s line of sight to see a crumpled hose of finely woven wool laying in a picturesque beam of morning light at the foot of Eivor’s bed, its partner (and it’s owner) long gone.

“Ah!” Eivor chuckled as she finished tying up the trousers, the night before coming back in vivid memory. “Molle will be missing that. Perhaps I should -”

“There are more important matters at hand!” Fulke snapped, “my lord.” She added; a sheepish afterthought. She had not spoken to Eivor so impertinently in the months since Odin had lent his full blessing to her. Eivor noted this but did not yet comment. Fulke continued on with her report, head still bowed respectfully, but her hand holding a little tighter to her own knee, “I have also contacted your former ally. Your guest should arrive at the meeting place within the week. Have you…” she chanced a glance up to Eivor from beneath her brows, “considered my recommendation?”

“I have,” Eivor said, tying up her shirt, “You are accustomed to advising mortal men, Paladin.” she smirked conspiratorially, “I am neither. I have a plan and will not require further soldiers. You and I alone will be sufficient for my needs.”

Fulke bit her tongue, choosing her words carefully,“If I might humbly request, my lord - for your safety - that you take this time to…” She eyed the stocking crumpled in front of her with open distaste, “reflect -  _ alone -  _ on how best to approach this confrontation.”

Eivor paused in rolling up her sleeve, “you are unhappy with me.” It was a truth so unexpected that Eivor could not help but be entertained. Fulke had not made any overtures to resume or answer the enquiry posed by Eivor’s kiss upon her ancient awakening. Eivor had assumed that Fulke’s pliant eagerness for her kiss that evening had merely been a displaced outlet for the thrill of her own victory. She had not questioned Fulke’s seeming lack of continued interest. But now it was clear that there was something more behind it.

“I simply mean that he is dangerous, my lord,” she said stiffly, “he manipulated me into accepting you, when I could just as easily have stepped forward and taken Sigurd. King Aelfred would have-”

“And you dare presume that I would fall for his tricks as easily as you have?”

Fulke looked up - panic flooding her face, then quickly bowed her head again, remembering herself, “never, my lord!”

“This performative reverence is not conducive to thoughtful discussion.”

“My lord! There is nothing of performance in my thoughts or deeds.”

“And yet you do not speak your mind.”

“I speak as much of my mind as is correct.”

“Your censure is written across your face.” Eivor declared, “It is presumptuous of you to believe you can hide it from me.”

Fulke glared up at her from a bowed head, her eyes hooded in poorly hidden anger. “You are too indulgent.” She said finally, her voice taking on that dark, old wood creak Eivor remembered from the dungeon, “too decadent, my lord.”

“You disapprove!” Eivor laughed, “What have you learned of the gods to suggest we would not be decadent? And what other pleasures might I indulge in that would not destroy this form from the inside?” Eivor stalked toward where Fulke knelt and stood above her, “Stand,” she commanded. Fulke did as she was told; she was taller than Eivor, but she kept her eyes respectfully downcast.

“You need not be envious, Fulke,” Eivor murmured, now close enough to be heard with next to no voice, “Where is that devotion you showed me before, when I awakened? Or perhaps it is only the smell of blood that excites you.”

“There are more useful ways for me to serve you my lord.” Fulke said the intimate tones contradicting her own words, “I seek to serve you as best I can, and my sword can serve you better than my -” she swallowed, “my sword and my information can serve you best of all.”

“You can be useful  _ and _ have your own desires. One does not negate the other.”

The threat of a sneer twitched at the peak of Fulke’s cheekbone, “the pull of lust is but the whispering of the flesh. And the flesh is not to be trusted.”

Eivor smirked wide and slow, “You sound like a Christian,” and stepped away, pacing the room.

“My lord!” She seemed truly angry then, and Eivor revelled in the reaction (elevated heart rate, flush high on the cheeks, jaw muscles twitching with repression).

“What may you trust if not your own flesh?”

“My mind.”

“Can you? After a careful and unbiased consideration of the circumstances - Do you honestly believe that my enjoyment of the sisters will have any bearing on my ability to take on my enemies? Or is your  _ mind _ overpowered by the ‘whispering of the flesh?’ Are you too proud to say what you want?”

Fulke swallowed again and ground her teeth. Eivor stepped back to stand directly before her and ordered, “say what you want, or go.”

Fulke’s eyes flicked up to meet Eivor’s, “I want you.”

Eivor pounced at the very moment of confirmation, taking a commanding grip of Fulke’s pauldron straps and steering her to the wall before pressing her lips to hers in a hard kiss. Fulke kissed back, matching her force and the two of them teetered balanced in opposition, until Eivor pulled back reasserting her hold. Fulke leaned her head against the wall and grinned down at Eivor, who took the opportunity of exposed neck to plant a bite just beneath the point of her jawbone.

Eivor continued to bite her way down Fulke’s neck, and ran her hands down her front and sides, pressing hard. The quilted leather was so thick she couldn’t even feel the warmth of the body beneath it. She thought wistfully of the loose fitting shirt Fulke had worn to unlock her, and wished she’d taken the opportunity to investigate Fulke’s form then, when there had been fewer barriers. 

Eivor got to work against the straps, and straps, and buckles and straps of Fulke’s armor with determination. The bracers, the books, the cowl, the cape, the scabbard all fell to the floor (only the books elicited a word of protest and a firm rebuke as Fulke rescued them from clattering clumsily and instead laid them gently atop the nest of discarded clothing). The knee-length quilted leather coat proved more complicated than it looked and Fulke undid the fiddly fastenings herself with shaking hands. From there came the boots, and Eivor watched with some amusement as Fulke swore quietly in her native tongue as she fumbled the sturdy buckles and kicked them off. 

Eivor untied the fastening laces on one side of her trousers as Fulke unlaced the other side and stepped out of them, leaving her in only a chest wrap (unlike any Eivor had seen before), and the tied up cloth covering her sex. 

Despite her height and generally intimidating presence, now that she was undressed, Eivor was struck with how  _ small _ Fulke was. Like an angry cat reduced to half its size in the rain. Her arms seemed like they should have been incapable of wielding the strength Eivor had seen her exhibit first hand. Without her pauldron and cowl, her shoulders were narrow - the swell of muscle doing little to fill her out. Her narrow ribcage tapered gently to a densely muscled waist, curving only slightly outward to her hips, and long legs which Eivor could now see had been optically shortened and deformed by her long jacket.

Eivor reached out to feel the nearly imperceptible curve of her waist for herself. She kissed Fulke, pressing her to the wall again, hands roaming hungrily, finally feeling the warmth of skin she hadn’t felt through all that armor. She pawed at the chest cover to finish unwrapping her, and reached for it the way she would if she were undoing her own chest wrapping.

Fulke swatted Eivor’s hand away a little harder than necessary, “I’ll do it.” she said, and she moved to unlace the chest wrapping, face flushed with embarrassment, “I invented it myself. This one doesn’t… It stays up.” It was a strange contraption of sturdy linen with straps that went over the shoulder, and laces on both sides allowing just enough give for breathing, while strapping the breasts to the chest. Fulke finished unlacing both sides and pulled it over her head.

Eivor shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was. She knew that if she had worn Fulke’s armor in exactly the same way, her chest would have been flattened to slate, where Fulke had always had the telltale swell of a bosom. Still Eivor was momentarily stunned when Fulke’s breasts, full and soft, freed themselves from her chest wrapping to fall against her rib cage, entirely at odds with her otherwise leanly muscled, boyish frame. There was a delicious, comic irony that Fulke had been gifted with such a body and seemed spitefully determined to take no enjoyment in it, regardless of her own desires.

She looked like she had been intended to be an elegant lady of court, but had been blown far off the course of her own fate by some strange storm.

A different kind of woman could have used all this to her advantage. She could have allowed others to believe her weak from the start. Kept her hair long (or cut it with even a shred of aesthetic purpose) and smiled to get her way. She could have used flirtation to avoid drawing blood, and caught her enemies off guard should any conflict arise. But Fulke had opted for an exaggerated show of intimidation, forcing herself to rise to meet the expectations she placed for anyone who saw her. Here she was adorned not with finery, but with scars, and hardy lean muscle. Perhaps that came easier to her than smiling.

Fulke glared at Eivor, daring her to say something foolish about her appearance but instead Eivor wrapped one hand around her waist, the other around the back of her neck, and kissed her. She traced the scars lacing across her back and allowed her hand to wander to her front, snaking up her stomach to capture an already pointed nipple between her fingers. Fulke gasped and pulled away from the kiss, Eivor took her hair in her fist, holding her just far enough away to observe her reaction when she pinched again, twisting this time - just a little. Fulke whimpered, eyes hazy but unreservedly candid in a way foriegn to what Eivor understood to be in Fulke’s character. Interesting. She released hold of Fulke’s hair, allowing her to press her face into Eivor’s neck, and held her up with a sturdy arm flat across her scapula. Fulke kept her arms stubbornly at her side.

She let go of the nipple and swiped across it with her thumbnail before taking a final satisfying grip, and exploring elsewhere on the scar-mapped topography of Fulke’s form. Sternum to belly, naval to the soft sliver of fat below, and just below that, the final barrier of fabric.

Eivor ran a finger across the line where skin met fabric, but stayed outside of the underthings, exploring gently further down yet, where it covered her sex, feeling the mesh of hair beneath the thin fabric, and the heat and dampness leaking through. Fulke scoffed impatiently into Eivor’s neck and ground her hips against her hand. Eivor raised an eyebrow, and crooked her fingers experimentally, eliciting a satisfying whimper. Encouraged, she pulled the cloth aside and let her fingers hover a little above where Fulke was now so desperate for her to touch. 

In all her adult life, Eivor had never had a woman in her arms whom she had not found a way to please, but Fulke had seemed before all this determined to be dissatisfied, so she tempered her usual confidence with a dose of caution. She held a little tighter around Fulke’s slim shoulders and touched the damp softness of her cunt. 

Fulke jolted at the contact, and Eivor revised her approach, surprised that she was so sensitive. She pressed a little, and felt around, learning the shape of her, brushing her fingers side to side, rolling between the folds. Fulke had seemed resistant to holding onto Eivor, but now she laced the fabric of her shirt between her fingers, barely moving, barely breathing, as both of their universes became that crowded little space at the zenith of her thighs. Eivor swiped her fingers forward, finding her clitoris, and just barely glancing across the knot of nerves. Fulke jolted again. Eivor removed her hand (another little whimper), and untied one side of the cloth allowing it to fall uselessly around the other ankle. 

Eivor steered her back to the wall a mere step away and lifted Fulke’s leg to wrap around her hip. She held Fulke firmly against her waist with her left arm, left hand spread securely across the sturdy flesh on the underside of her thigh, as her right hand made its way back to her sex.

“Your knife unlocked me from my prison of bones.” Eivor whispered, fingers probing with intent, “my hands will do the same for you.” Eivor enjoyed how her words seemed to amplify the wetness seeping onto her hand. Fulke shifted her hips, coaxing Eivor’s fingers to her entrance, and with that inspiration, Eivor slid her forefinger inside. 

They inhaled in unison and Eivor stilled, allowing Fulke to adjust, and after a moment she moved, experimentally, seeking the motion that would unravel the austere paladin. If such a thing were even possible. Fulke was a creature so tightly bound up in her ties of piety and duty, it was a wonder she was able to let go of consciousness long enough to sleep at night. But Eivor was determined, and she had a long way to go before her arm would get tired. 

She experimented with depth and angle, carefully observing for any changes in Fulke’s demeanor. Fulke’s hands scrambled for purchase on the smooth wall behind her until, finding none, she relented and gripped Eivor’s shoulders, entirely reliant on her to keep her standing. Her small sounds of pleasure against Eivor’s ears sent buzzing chills of delight down her spine, and heartened her to keep going.

Eivor hit a certain spot inside and felt Fulke’s body constrict softly around her finger, and her spine roll to press her front closer to Eivor’s. She felt for the spot again, and Fulke moaned lasciviously against Eivor’s throat. Eivor thrust at that angle again, a little harder, a little faster, and Fulke bit down hard on the place her neck met her shoulder, making Eivor yelp in surprised laughter. 

She fucked hard into the angle that seemed to make Fulke hold tighter to her, unable to help herself moaning in sympathy with Fulke’s descent into decadence.

She pulled nearly all the way out, massaging the entrance a little, and allowing her middle finger - already soaking wet - to join her forefinger inside. She hit that spot again, again, and again, and Fulke’s standing knee buckled, placing her weight entirely at Eivor’s mercy, and forcing Eivor’s fingers further inside. Fulke’s eyes flew open wide and she gasped a string of what sounded like Francish curses.

Eivor stayed deep inside and unulated her fingers for good measure - eliciting a little yelp of protest. She laughed and relented, removing her hand. She lowered Fulke’s leg from her waist, allowing her to stand on two feet (leaning against the wall for further support), and with a mutually open mouthed kiss eased them both to the floor.

Fulke lay on her back, and pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes, panting, color high on her cheekbones, all the way down her throat, and chest, red as a sunbird. Eivor knelt beside her, admiring the pull of gravity on her breasts, the capable strength of her limbs, the way her stomach muscles flexed, and the scars undulated as she gathered her breath.

Eivor pushed her sleeves back up her forearms and traced one faint scar from under Fulke’s left breast, curving its way all the way down to the pale hair at her mons. She delved her fingers down to touch the swollen flesh below.

Eivor hummed sweetly by way of question, and Fulke nodded wordlessly without taking her hands away from her eyes. Eivor pressed both fingers back in and resumed her previous rhythm, taking a moment to find the spot in this new position. She knew when she had it by the indulgent sound cast unbidden from the back of Fulke’s throat.

Emboldened, Eivor braced her left hand on the curve of Fulke’s ribcage, thumb and forefinger framing the underside of her breast, and revelled in the kinetic movement of the soft flesh in accordance with the rhythm of her right hand.

She bent down to quickly wet Fulke’s sex with her tongue before pressing her thumb more forcefully against her clit with every thrust, Fulke cried out at the added sensation, and Eivor grinned, biting the little valley beneath the peak of Fulke’s hipbone. Then - still fucking energetically - biting her waist, the bottom of her ribcage, just beneath the swell of her breast, and finally, viciously, closing her mouth hard on her nipple. Fulke whined, back arching enough to allow Eivor to slip an arm around her waist and hold her partway up.

Her breaths came faster and faster until they became strained little gasps one after another, her back arched even more dramatically and her mouth fell open in a silent scream. Liquid soaked languidly between Eivor’s joined fingers, and Fulke’s body felt taut and swollen against her fingertips. 

Fulke clasped her hands in front of her eyes in a semblance of a prayer and turned away from Eivor’s relentless gaze as though in distress. Eivor paused what she was doing and Fulke snapped her eyes back to Eivor glaring from behind her hands. 

“You want me to stop,” doubt - pure Eivor - snuck into her heart. 

Fulke shook her head fervently “please. Please don’t stop, my lord,” tears welled in her eyes, her lips murmured against her joined hands as though to anchor herself, “Eivor. Hear my supplication and have mercy on my unworthy soul.”

Eivor smirked down at her, “then let me see your face,” with her free hand she took Fulke’s clasped hands and pinned them above her head, “I want to watch you come undone”

Helpless to do anything other than gaze upon Eivor’s face in venerative astonishment as she mercilessly fucked into her, Fulke gasped again and again, her body becoming taut with an inevitable build up of pressure. Finally dragging her off the cliff of composure and self control and into a free fall of unfurling rapture. She let out a beastly guttural noise as her spine arched and tears sprang to her eyes, her body convulsed and a nonsense stream of Francish, Latin, and English erupted as though between sobs. She tried to hide her face behind her arm, but Eivor held her wrists tight, and she could only make eye contact for a moment before her eyes rolled back again in the irresistible pull of her body’s pleasure. 

Truly a miraculous sight

Once Fulke finally stilled, Eivor removed her fingers slowly. Fulke whimpered at the sensation of being suddenly void, sensitive and swollen, and clasped her knees together. She opened her mouth to speak, closed it, swallowed, and opened her mouth again, finally meeting Eivor’s eye and managing a small, “oh,” and covering her face with her hands.

By the gods. Eivor had broken her paladin. Eivor wiped her hand on her own shirt and reached tentatively to touch Fulke’s head, “Fulke?” she spoke quietly.

Fulke flinched and Eivor took her hand back quickly, concern giving way to near panic. Fulke mumbled something incomprehensible behind her hands.

“What was that?”

“You have seen me.”

“I have seen you… often these months.” Eivor said, confused.

“You have seen my weakness. I am not a mere animal, my lord,” Fulke lowered her hands - she was crying, “Please believe, I have tempered my vile lust for - my devotion to you is true. Of the soul not the body. Of the highest order and lofty in intent. I do not seek - I did not seek - I do not do as you ask for the hope of base  _ rutting _ ” she covered her face again, now sobbing disconsolately, “I follow you, Ancient One for your wisdom not… not…”

This had never happened to Eivor before. Stunned (and unsure what else to do) she placed a hand on Fulke’s slumped back in an unsteady gesture of support. She kept her hand there, between the shoulder blades, until the shaking sobs had ceased, replaced by a lyre-string tension.

“Do you think me a fool?” Eivor said finally, 

“No, my lord,” Fulke whispered.

“Do you believe I am unable to discern intent and devotion when I see it? You have proven your devotion already, Paladin.” She wiped the unevenly chopped hair from Fulke’s brow. Fulke raised her head at the touch but did not meet her gaze, “No one else would have gone to such extremes to find me. you removed my eye in the pursuit of that vision.” She stood and offered a hand to help Fulke up. Fulke stood without it. “Get dressed, and see to yourself,” Eivor instructed. “The work continues. Nothing has changed.”

But, of course, it had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't feel too bad for her she did torture Eivor for a month. 
> 
> If you did not heed my warnings and opted instead to read this, please say hello, or leave a kudos!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Again, I'm not really anticipating a big response from this one, but I would love to hear from you if you enjoyed it! Or just had a feeling.


End file.
